Thomas Straubhaar on the necessity of questioning the Gross Domestic Product as an indicator of prosperity, as it increasingly fails to represent a growing proportion of societal work and value creation:
“The value creation on the internet, the virtual trade with digital data as well as the effects of a sharing economy, in which expensive and durable goods – such as apartments, cars or electrical appliances – are used collectively and not acquired individually, elude substantial recording, spatial allocation and temporal delimitation. Therefore, the GDP and its measurement methods are of less significance than ever. Recognizing this is not only a minimal requirement for science, which has to search for new and better methods. It must also be conveyed to the public and the media how senseless it has become to worry about marginal fluctuations behind the decimal point in the GDP or even to spread worries or euphoria when fundamental problems question the whole concept.”
– Thomas Straubhaar “The Hour of the Optimists – How the Economy of the Future Works”, Edition Körber